The present invention relates to a door chime and, in particular, a door chime designed to be activated by a pet animal in order to alert the owner that the pet wishes to leave or enter a house or other building.
Often when a pet animal, such as a pet dog, wishes to be let out of or into a house, it may either stand silently by the door waiting for the owner to come by and open the door or it may bark or even scratch at the door. Where the dog merely waits silently at the door, it may wait a period of long time before the owner happens to come by and see the dog. Even if the dog does bark, the owner may not be near enough to hear the dog, or the owner may hear the dog but may confuse the barking with other barking the dog may do if the dog tends to bark a lot. Or, the owner may find the barking to be annoying to others. The scratching of the door clearly is undesirable as it can cause damage to the door.
Several devices have been proposed that may be used by a pet in order to alert the owner that it desires to have a door opened. These devices are typically mounted to the door and include some type of alarm that is activated by the pet. Because the alarm is internal to the device, it may not be heard by the owner if the owner is in a remote part of the house. In addition, with some of the devices, considerable defacing of the door is required in order to mount the device to the door. Furthermore, because these devices are mounted to the door, the pet may cause damage to the door as it attempts to activate the device.
The present invention, therefore, provides a pet-activated chime system that is portable and easily activated by a pet. The chime is not mounted to the door and hence neither the mounting of the chime or the pet will cause damage to the door. In addition, the invention provides a chime unit that is remote from a switch unit that is activated by the pet. The chime unit can, therefore, be moved to a location where the owner of the pet can hear the chime unit sound when the pet activates the switch unit.